Michael J. Behe A (R)evolutionary Biologist
Category

Irreducible Complexity

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Neuron and antibodies, immunoglobulin, Y-shaped protein produced mainly by plasma cells
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Response to Ian Musgrave’s “Open Letter to Dr. Michael Behe,” Part 4

This is the fourth of five posts in which I reply to Dr. Ian Musgrave’s “Open Letter to Dr. Michael Behe” on the Panda’s Thumb blog. And now let’s talk about Dr. Musgrave’s “core argument,” that subsequent to the virus leaping to humans from chimps Vpu developed the ability to act as a viroporin, allowing the leakage of cations which helps release the virus from the cell membrane. Yes, I’m perfectly willing to concede that this does appear to be the development of a new viral protein-viral protein binding site, one which I overlooked when writing about HIV. So the square point in Figure 7.4 representing HIV should be placed on the Y axis at a value of one, instead Read More ›

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Medical background, bacteria facultative anaerobes, Salmonella, enterobacteria, rod-shaped, flagella over the entire surface, causative agent of salmonella infection, pathogen, 3D rendering
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Response to Ian Musgrave’s “Open Letter to Dr. Michael Behe,” Part 3

This is the third of five posts in which I reply to Dr. Ian Musgrave’s “Open Letter to Dr. Michael Behe” on the Panda’s Thumb blog. In my reply to Smith I quoted from a review (3) which asked the question why, with so much genetic variation, do we just see “interesting variations” in biological properties. Smith, replying to me on her blog in high dudgeon, quotes the next paragraph of the review which details some of those interesting variations: The long terminal repeat region (LTR) of the HIV genome regulates transcription and viral replication, acting as a promoter responsive to the viral Tat protein. Although all subtypes share the same LTR function, they differ with respect to LTR sequence Read More ›

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Calmodulin, a crucial messenger protein
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Reply to Gross

The current edition of The New Criterion carries a lengthy reviewof The Edge of Evolution (subscription required) by the biochemist Paul Gross. Unfortunately, although he is commendably civil and kindly praises my writing and speaking abilities, Gross offers little of actual substance other than to declare the book’s arguments wrong. He quotes Ken Miller saying that the malaria calculations are wrong, and alludes to Sean Carroll’s declaration that, why, there is a vast number of (unspecified) papers showing how protein binding sites can evolve. For rejoinders to those claims, I refer readers to my comments on this blog concerning Carroll’s and Miller’s reviews.

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Pyrimethamine molecule. Ball-and-stick molecular model. Chemistry related 3d rendering
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Back and forth with Sean Carroll in Science

Science has published a letter by myself responding to Sean Carroll’s earlier review of The Edge of Evolution. In my letter I note that: In his unfavorable review of my book, The Edge of Evolution, Sean Carroll writes that “Behe’s chief error is minimizing the power of natural selection to act cumulatively,” and implies that I fail to discuss “pyrimethamine resistance in malarial parasites … –a notable omission given Behe’s extensive discussion of malarial drug resistance. But, I demurred, I did write about pyrimethamine. Carroll admitted in Science right after my published letter that, well, yes, I did discuss pyrimethamine resistance, but his real concern was that I didn’t give it the spin he wanted: Behe did indeed discuss pyrimethamine resistance on pages 75 and 76 Read More ›

Genetic Disorder DNA Molecule Structure
Colorful DNA molecule. Structure of the genetic code. Genetic Syndrome and Genetic Disorder, 3D illustration of science concept.
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Korthof and Pseudogenes: Part 4

The Dutch biologist Gert Korthof maintains a website devoted to in-depth reviews of many books on evolution. Aside from often-insightful remarks, a delightful feature of his site is that he can write with great strength of feeling and yet not engage in insults or ad hominem remarks. He has posted an extensive review of The Edge of Evolution. He makes two main points. First, that while I profess to believe in both common descent and intelligent design, he sees an internal contradiction — there cannot be, he thinks, common descent if there is intelligent design, and vice versa. The second point is that he thinks I contradict what I wrote in Darwin’s Black Box concerning the status of pseudogenes as evidence of common descent. I’ll Read More ›

medical-background-bacteria-facultative-anaerobes-salmonella-enterobacteria-rod-shaped-flagella-over-the-entire-surface-causative-agent-of-salmonella-infection-pathogen-3d-rendering-stockpack-adobe-stock
Medical background, bacteria facultative anaerobes, Salmonella, enterobacteria, rod-shaped, flagella over the entire surface, causative agent of salmonella infection, pathogen, 3D rendering
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Microbe Magazine and the Bacterial Flagellum: Part 3

Dear Readers, This is the third in a series of responses I’m posting this week. In “Evolution of the Bacterial Flagellum” (Microbe Magazine, July 2007), Wong et al seek to counter arguments of intelligent design proponents such as myself that the flagellum did not evolve by random mutation and natural selection. Unfortunately, their otherwise-fine review misunderstands design reasoning and so fails to engage that issue. The critical passage from Wong et al is the first paragraph: Proponents of the intelligent design (ID) explanation for how organisms developed claim that the bacterial flagellum (BF) is irreducibly complex. They argue that this structure is so complicated that it could not have emerged through random selection but had to be designed by an Read More ›

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DNA sequence. Generative AI
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Response to Richard Dawkins

Dear Readers, Here I respond briefly to Richard Dawkins’ review of The Edge of Evolution in theNew York Times. I must admit I was surprised that he agreed to do it. In the past Dawkins has said that on principle he would not interact with proponents of intelligent design, because that would give us publicity. I guess when the New York Times offers writing space, principles can be reconsidered. Other Darwinist reviewers have blustered; Dawkins is the only one who has dripped venom. I will pass on replying to that. He makes just two substantive points in his review. The first is that the success of artificial selection in things like dog breeding show the malleability of organisms, so why should Darwinian evolution be Read More ›

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3d rendering of Human cell or Embryonic stem cell microscope background.
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Response to Kenneth R. Miller, Continued

Yesterday, in the first part of my response to Kenneth Miller’s review, in which I addressed his substantive points, I ended by showing that a reference he cited did not contain the evidence he claimed it did. In this final part, I more closely examine Miller’s tendentious style of argumentation. Speaking of throwing around irrelevant references, Miller writes: Telling his readers that the production of so much as a single new protein-to-protein binding site is “beyond the edge of evolution”, [Behe] proclaims darwinian evolution to be a hopeless failure. Apparently he has not followed recent studies exploring the evolution of hormone-receptor complexes by sequential mutations (Science 312, 97-101; 2006), the ‘evolvability’ of new functions in existing proteins — studies on serum paraxonase (PON1) Read More ›

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Malaria parasite in red blood cells, ring form stage of Plasmodium falciparum, original magnification 1000x
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Response to Kenneth R. Miller

Dear Readers, Here I respond to the unfavorable review of The Edge of Evolution by Kenneth R. Miller inNature. Like Sean Carroll, whose review in Science I discussed earlier, he employs much bluster. But Miller goes well beyond simple bluster. I overlooked Carroll’s rhetoric and dealt only with his substantial arguments. This time I’ll do things differently. Today I’ll respond to Miller’s substantive points. Tomorrow we’ll take a closer look at his style of argumentation. After mentioning that de novo resistance to chloroquine is found roughly once in every 1020 malaria parasites, and quoting several sentences from The Edge of Evolution where I note “On average, for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would need to wait a hundred million times ten Read More ›